Book cover images courtesy of the publishers
Books by Princeton Professors Make Year-End 'Best-Of’ Lists
These books by Princeton professors have all been selected for at least one 2024 year-end “best of” list. Whether you’re scrambling for a last-minute gift idea or laying in your own stores for winter reading, these faculty titles have you covered.
The list, in alphabetical order by author, includes novels, memoir, history, poetry, biography, essays and nonfiction.
For more ideas, consider these University resources: the Humanities Council’s Faculty Bookshelf, the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Featured Faculty Publications, and the School of Public and International Affairs’ Faculty Books and Awards compilation.
“Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs” (W.W. Norton), by David Bellos, co-authored with Alexandre Montagu, is included in The New Yorker Best Books of 2024 and The Spectator Books of the Year. The New Yorker writes, "While warning against the overreach of contemporary copyright law, this lively, opinionated and ultra-timely book also raises the alarm about the increasing dominance of artificial intelligence, a technology that threatens to bring the whole legal structure of copyright down." Bellos is the Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature, professor of French and Italian and comparative literature, and director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication.
“Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority” (Pantheon), by Anne Cheng, is included in the Hyperallergic 30 Best Art Books of 2024 and the Washington Independent Review of Books 51 Favorite Books of 2024. Critic Alice Stephens writes in the Independent: “[T]his collection goes well beyond the personal as Cheng stitches her witness testimony into the broader tapestries of Asian American history and culture, the immigrant experience, and American womanhood." Cheng is a professor of English.
“Great Expectations” (Hogarth), by Vinson Cunningham, is included in The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024, NPR Books We Love 2024, The Washington Post 50 Notable Works of Fiction from 2024, and Esquire's Best Books of 2024 (So Far). The New York Times writes, "In this impressive first novel, a Black campaign aide coolly observes as aspiring power players angle to connect with a candidate who more than resembles Barack Obama." Cunningham is a Ferris Professor of Journalism and a visiting lecturer in the Humanities Council.
“Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), by Eliza Griswold, is included in The New Yorker Best Books of 2024, The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024, The Washington Post 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction from 2024, NPR Books We Love 2024 and Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2024: Religion, among many others. Publishers Weekly writes: “Pulitzer winner Griswold paints an indelible portrait of the interpersonal tensions, internal biases, and gaps between utopian ideals and messy reality that unraveled a progressive Philadelphia church in 2023.” Read a Q&A about the book. Griswold is a Ferris Professor of Journalism, director of the Humanities Council’s Program in Journalism and a Class of 1995 graduate.
“Shakespeare’s Tragic Art” (Princeton University Press), by Rhodri Lewis, is included in The New Yorker Best Books of 2024. The New Yorker writes, “This engaging study seeks to understand the ‘engine’ driving Shakespeare’s tragedies. …Ultimately, Lewis writes, the aim of Shakespeare’s tragedies is not to moralize or to pronounce but to make audiences reflect on ‘human thought as an ineradicably emotional phenomenon.’” Lewis is a senior research scholar and lecturer with the rank of professor in English and Freshman Seminars.
“Tchaikovsky’s Empire: A New Life of Russia’s Greatest Composer” (Yale University Press), by Simon Morrison, is included in the Financial Times' Best Books of 2024-Classical and Pop Music. The Financial Times writes that Morrison "focuses on the imperial world in which Tchaikovsky moved and the wider influences on his music to create a fresh profile of a familiar composer." Morrison is a professor of music and Slavic languages and literatures and director of the Fund for Canadian Studies.
“Joy in Service on Rue Tagore” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by Paul Muldoon, is included in The New York Times Notable Books of 2024. The Times writes, "Muldoon’s latest poetry collection continues his longtime trick of marshaling obscure references into fluent, fun and rollicking lyrics that lull you in with their musicality, then punch you in the gut with their full force once you decipher their meanings." Muldoon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, is the Howard G.B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humanities, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts and director of the Princeton Atelier. This is his 15th collection of poetry.
“AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference” (Princeton University Press), by Arvind Narayanan, co-authored with Princeton computer science graduate student Sayash Kapoor, is included in Bloomberg’s Top Business Leaders Pick the Year’s 49 Best Books and Nature's Best Books of 2024. Princeton University Provost Jennifer Rexford, the Gordon Y.S. Wu professor in engineering and a professor of computer science, recommended the book to Bloomberg. She writes: "While AI is driving innovation and enhancing efficiency across many industries, it can also fail, sometimes with serious consequences. This book delves into when and why AI sometimes falls short, to help you make informed choices about how to best apply it." Narayanan is a professor of computer science and director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. Read a Q&A about the book with Narayanan and Kapoor on the Princeton University homepage.
“Flint Kill Creek: Stories of Mystery and Suspense” (Mysterious Press), and “Butcher” (Knopf), both by Joyce Carol Oates, are included in The New Yorker Best Books of 2024 and the Vogue Best Books of 2024, respectively. The New Yorker writes of "Flint Kill Creek": "Relationships swerve disastrously off course, people aren’t as one thought they were, and seemingly bucolic landscapes turn sinister." One of the stories, “Late Love,” first appeared in the magazine. Vogue calls "Butcher" a "gripping historical novel [that] might reasonably be deemed unapproachable for its subject matter — it concerns a demented 19th century gynecologist — if the reader wasn’t in such capable hands." Oates is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus.
“I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays” (Doubleday), by Nell Irvin Painter, is included in The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024 and Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of the Year. Kirkus calls the book “a vibrant, insightful collection from an indispensable voice,” citing its “shrewd analyses of issues including race, class, and gender; history and historiography; police brutality and poverty; art, education, and politics.” Painter is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita.
Mary Cate Connors, communications manager for the Humanities Council, and Liz-Fuller Wright, science writer in the Office of Communications, contributed to this story.